There was a planned liquidation at Kraken that coincided quite nicely with a DDOS. Both events coincided with leaked Ripple rumors about locking up currency. It's a pretty obvious manipulation of one consortium over another in an attempt to favor one blockchain over another; if XRP wins, there's a nice consortium of Japanese banks that will make a killing. If ETH wins, it'll be American banks.

Studying crypto is useful because it illustrates what the regulated markets are trying to do but have to be sneaky about because regulation. Crypto? Fuckin' wild wild west.